


Damnatio Memoriae

by Bethesda



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angel Crowley (Good Omens), Angel Wings, Confused Aziraphale (Good Omens), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fate & Destiny, Hurt Crowley, Hurt/Comfort, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), Love, M/M, Meant To Be, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Protective Crowley, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 12:39:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19426165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bethesda/pseuds/Bethesda
Summary: In the beginning there was nothing.Well, not really nothing.There was someone.Actually, someone is not the right word too.Ok, let’s start again.In the beginning there was God.And nothing else. Just God languishing in this big ocean of naught, thinking about what to do with her endless possibilities, a big white canvas ready to be coloured.And God said: «That’s pretty boring, isn’t it?»So, she decided to create angels.





	Damnatio Memoriae

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, English is not my first language and usually I write in Italian, but I wanted to try something different. So, please, have mercy. I really appreciate any kind of help about my vocabulary or grammar, thanks.
> 
> Secondly, must say that it's all Wikipedia's fault, 'cause I was looking for some infos about Alpha Centaury and I read this:  
> "[...] Alpha Centauri A and B are Sun-like stars (Class G and K), and together they form the binary star Alpha Centauri AB. To the naked eye, the two main components appear to be a single star [...]".  
> So I started to think and somehow I created this thing.
> 
> Maybe it's not original, maybe it's not well written, but God, I loved to write it.
> 
> Least but not last, a big "Thank you" to Papysanzo89 (https://archiveofourown.org/users/Papysanzo89/pseuds/Papysanzo89) for being my betareader <3

_**Damnatio Memoriae** _

In the beginning there was nothing.

Well, not really nothing.

There was _someone_.

Actually, _someone_ is not the right word too.

Ok, let’s start again.

In the beginning there was God.

And nothing else. Just God languishing in this big ocean of naught, thinking about what to do with her endless possibilities, a big white canvas ready to be coloured.

And God said: «That’s pretty boring, isn’t it?»

So, she decided to create angels.

Now, angels were not like we imagine them now: they were an idea, power concentrated, capable of creating as well as God but without her knowledge. They were made of love and loved each other deeply, as they loved God herself.

They were her first children, and she loved to look at them playing.

Lucifer and Michael were a formidable couple, wandering together while their siblings looked at them in awe, for they were so close to God that they reflected her light. They were an example for the others.

But someone liked to play on their own.

Some of them spent their time – even though _time_ want’s a thing – creating stars and galaxies and whatever could bring joy with its beauty.

It was actually just two of them whom loved to run away to play with planets, and they could be found so far away from God’s light that they could sometime think on their own.

And when these two created what we now call Alpha Centauri, they were there, so close that they looked like one single entity, feeling not God’s love, but their own, for each other.

But it can’t be love without hate and despair, and frustration and fear.

And as they started to delineate their own conscience, one of them started to think: “Why are we here? Why do we create such beautiful thing and for whom? Is it just for us or there is something behind?”

There is no thing such as curiosity for something created just as a whim.

Lucifer was the one that decided to stand up and took thousands and thousands of them with him against God, not to take her place but to claim answers. But it was no angels’ business to know and so there was War.

The first one, the most painful one, because it was brothers against sisters, angels battling other angels, lovers fighting one another, even though they didn’t want to.

And there was the Fall.

And Hell was created, and Lucifer was its King and there was no such a thing like a Fallen Angel: just Demons.

They lose everything: God’s love, God’s piety, God’s light.

They looked at the stars that they created become something so little and so far, that some of them actually forgot that they were there once that they hit the ground.

And they thought that with burned wings they could not reach them anyway.

But one of those fallen angels kept looking at them, thinking about that time when he and his lover used their power and imagination to create something so beautiful and different, wondering if the other one was doing the same thing.

But it wasn’t God’s plan.

The faithful angels that stayed with God were given the gift of ignorance.

Their memory was cancelled and everyone of them forgot about the time when Demons and Angels were a single thing and not just enemies.

_**\----** _

On Sunday, the 21th of October, 4004 b.C. at 9:13 am, the Creation started: light, dark, Sun and Moon, Sky and Ground, every creature and finally the human kind.

Everyone and everything was in the Eden Garden, God too, looking at her creatures and stretching on her new legs. Angels were guarding the four gates and enjoying their new home, finally resting after six days of hard work.

I’m not going to talk about the Snake and the apple, about how God took it so badly.

We know this story.

But the angel and the demon that met on the walls of the garden are worth a mention.

When he saw Aziraphale from far away, a few days before, intent on taking care of the Knowledge Tree, Crowley’s heart hacked so hard.

Those shells were brand new and he too was a bit uncomfortable in his new skin, but it wasn’t about their new bodies. It was a matter of souls, and he felt Aziraphale’s one from far away.

He was pure light and his scales asked for his irradiating power.

After the notorious deed, he finally found the guts to meet him in person.

He crawled to him in silence, on the wall.

Crawley wanted to ask so many things.

He wanted to know if he was all right, if God punished him too after the war, since Aziraphale that time decided not to battle him; he wanted to ask for forgiveness, not for its behaviour – ‘cause he didn’t felt the need to do it nor the guilt towards God – but for having left him behind; he wanted to feel again the warmness of being one single thing with him, meant for each other and divided so abruptly that he felt that the wound wasn’t healed yet, even after all that time.

But the first words that he decided to pronounce were about those poor creatures that now were running for their lives out of the garden.

« _Well, that went down like a lead balloon_ ».

A soft, tense chuckle reached his brand new ears and he was ready to welcome the angel’s amazement. He waited for his friend’s first word after what felt like an eternity without his presence beside him. Actually, it was really meant to be the first time earing his voice in general, ‘cause when they were just metaphysical being there was no such thing as words, voices or vocal chords.

« _Sorry, what was that?_ »

Crawley wanted to tell him how much he missed him and was ready to do it, but was forced to stop.

Because Aziraphale didn’t recognised him.

It was pretty clear that he _knew_ him, but also that it wasn’t because of their past. He knew him ‘cause he was the vile serpent that Satan had sent to insinuate doubt in Eve’s mind, and not the old companion that was created simultaneously at him to spend the eternity together.

Crawley felt pain. Actual pain, for the first time with that body.

Something grabbed his stomach and crushed it and he damned himself once again for being so naïf and stupid.

But he didn’t say anything. He just repeated what he had just said and waited for the angel’s response.

And finally he asked him for his name.

Oh, he wanted to tell him so hard. He already had it on his lips, after so much time without having the guts to pronounce it again.

It was something that God took away with everything else, and he was actually pretty scared of pronouncing it again. But there was nothing else to lose and his other half was there, looking at him with no clue about what was going on in his mind.

And he understood that it wasn’t worth it.

The name was just a name, a world without any significance, for the other was not recognizing him even though they were so close, their souls touching.

The demon thought that everything was lost.

Aziraphale was the only thing that he was sure that God hadn’t touched, but he was wrong. It was the first thing that she took away, the most important one.

Maybe he wasn’t worth of forgiveness, but after that discovery he realized that she wasn’t too.

« _Well, it must be bad…_ »

«Crawley», said the Demon, using the name linked to his betrayal.

« _Crawley_ », repeated the other. And for a moment it seemed quite a nice name for him.

They kept chatting and the demon rediscovered the other one. He was scared of doing something against God’s plan but couldn’t help himself with helping the other – in that peculiar case, Adam and Eve – and somehow wasn’t disgusted by standing side by side with the enemy.

Then rain started to fall over them for the first time ever, and their immediate reaction was to get closer one another. And as Aziraphale lifted his wing, Crawley felt it even stronger:

Love, unconditioned, the one kind that permeated their origin. He felt their souls bonding once again.

But somehow Aziraphale looked like nothing had happened, like he was wrapped in an impenetrable shell.

Maybe, Crawley thought, he hadn’t really forgotten him.

Maybe he just had to dig deeper and deeper to get him out of it.

So, he decided to spend the eternity doing it.

**\---**

«Why Alpha Centauri?», asked Aziraphale one day.

Time has passed. A long time since the events of the failed Armageddon, and London was more and more an advanced city, so far away from its original concept.

Maybe one decade passed, or maybe one century, maybe even two: when you are a Celestial Being, time is not something that you take care of too much.

They didn’t actually care too much, ‘cause they were still the same.

Aziraphale still had his bookshop, the only one of its kind left in London, and Crowley his Bentley. He had his apartment too, but didn’t spent too much time in it since the little quarrel that both of them had with the respective bosses.

Now that they were on their own, they could spend all their free time with each other, and they had a lot of it.

So, when Aziraphale asked that question, they were far away from London, in a little bay hidden on the oriental coast of England.

Clouds were running through the sky, playing with the sun, hiding it and then discovering it once again after a few seconds. It was a hot day but the air was clear and frisky and it was nice to feel the breeze over their skin.

There was no one apart from them.

They were alone and they were enjoying it.

Aziraphale particularly, since he had decided to show off one of his outfit, a bathing suit that he had bought in Blackpool in 1889 and that he still considered fancy and _à la page_ , has he had already said to Crowley in other occasions.

Crowley had refused to take off his clothes apart from his jacket and nothing could convince him.

They had already quarrelled about the respective attitudes concerning those things and now they were just enjoying the calmness of the beach, surrounded by nothing but the sound of waves and the smell of salt and sand. 

Sit on a towel, with a picnic backed at his feet, Aziraphale had his eyes closed and was sat, grabbing his own knees, while Crowley was practically playing dead right next to him, his arms folded as a pillow under his head.

Despite the occasion, he wasn’t wearing his sunglasses.

When the Angel asked the question, Crowley tried to act casual.

«I beg you pardon?»

«When you asked me on multiple occasions to run away with you during that Armageddon thing, you wanted to go to Alpha Centauri».

The demon kept his eyes closed.

«Why that one in peculiar? It’s pretty far away, I know, but it’s not so famous for its nightlife for sure».

Crowley decided to finally sit and open his eyes, sliding through him to cut off the little distance that they had had.

«What do you know about Alpha Centauri?», asked the devil one.

«Well», started Aziraphale, «As I said, that it’s pretty far away and that there is nothing, just… stars».

«Yeah, of course, but anything else?»

«What else should I know?»

«I don’t know, for example who created it».

Aziraphale was in the same position as before, his hands clinging on his knees, but now there was Crowley, shoulder to shoulder with him, that looked terribly relaxed.

It wasn’t definitely like that: Crowley was pretty anxious in that moment, ‘cause in all those millennia he had never found the right occasion to discuss the decision that he took on the Eden’s wall.

To show himself to Aziraphale.

His past self, the one before the Fall.

But things changed during their stay on Earth and both of them were transformed by it.

They softened.

Aziraphale was no more the blind angel of God, always ready to forgive her actions as part of something bigger, and Crowley was now more human than celestial, somehow.

He had started to appreciate every single aspect of his life on Earth and being once again with Aziraphale on his side was the main reason.

«God created Alpha Centauri, Crowley», said him with a tone that implied a “ _you silly_ ”.

«That’s not correct».

The angel blinked a few times, perplexed.

«Then who? There was no one before her, and after there were angels».

«Correct».

«But no angels had such a duty. Lucifer, Michael and Gabriel were occupied with her and never played with stars».

Crowley nodded, but the gaze of Aziraphale was more and more confused.

He reached for his eyes and leaned on him a little more, just a few inch far away from his face. The angel didn’t flinch.

«You created it. With me».

Aziraphale looked at him. Then at the sea. Then at him. Then at his own feet.

And every time his eyes grew bigger and bigger.

«This is nonsense», babbled.

«Why», asked Crowley.

«I would remember, that’s why! I never did such a thing like creating galaxies and such».

He looked disturbed by what his friend had just said. Like, of course he would have remembered being capable of creating stars but he never had had a power like that.

«What do you remember of the War? Or, even better, what there was before it?»

Aziraphale slapped his hands on his knees and turned completely with his torso toward the devil, looking for his eyes. He wasn’t angry, Crowley, could feel it, but somehow the questions were making him uncomfortable.

«Why do we have to remember such things? Are you bored? Do you want to go home?»

«No, I don’t want to go home. It’s nice here», said the red one softly.

Aziraphale grabbed the closest hand of the other one, taking him by surprise.

«My dear…»

«Would you answer, please?»

He asked it without any kind of anger or despair. It was a genuine, curious question.

Aziraphale felt the urge to sigh, even though he didn’t need that.

«Fine. If you insist».

He left his hands but kept looking at him right in the eyes.

«It’s a bit confusing. The war, I mean. I remember Lucifer in front of me, gathering the others to attack us, and the Arcangels ready to react. I remember there was a lot of light and that we won easily, somehow. About the before, well, I just have the memory of this sensation of content, the one that usually you feel when you are next to God, talking to her. I don’t know if you remember it, it’s pretty peculiar».

Crowley puffed.

Not really what he had in mind.

Maybe he needed another millennium of frequentation to let Aziraphale memories come to surface.

«But there was another sensation. Something so strange», continued. The demon opened widely his jade eyes.

«It’s hard to describe ‘because it’s not something that I usually feel. Not with this kind of intensity, at least. It works like the smell of foods that I love: sometimes something happens and it triggers me. Any kind of action, really, it’s really random. It’s a strange feeling. It’s like I’m overwhelmed by love. And it’s so different from the one that you feel when you are next to God. It feels like nothing can harm you. It feels like when you cover yourself with a warm blanket during a stormy night, but more powerful. When I was working for _them_ and it happened it was the most marvellous sensation ‘cause every single doubt that I had in that moment about my work was blown away by it».

«By the way», Aziraphale continued, faking nonchalance while the other was hanging of his lips. «There were specific times when it had happened, now that I think of it. Like when we met in Rome that time that we ate oysters. And when you saved me from those Nazis. Or when we went to watch Shakespeare’s play. Also, there was a time in London during those eleven years spent with Warlock, that was really peculiar. I was watching a silly TV show, The Queen of Something, I don’t really remember now, and I felt it right when I remembered that it’s your--

His voice trembled and faded away.

He had just realized something, but he was not going to say it out loud.

Aziraphale looked away from his friend, gazing at the horizon. The sun was going down slowly.

And then he felt the other one’s hand on his back and then over is neck, till it arrived at his hairs. As Crowley leaned once again over him he could not think about how stupid sometimes his words were, and he was expecting for something similar to escape from the other one’s mouth, but when his lips reached Aziraphale’s ear, there were no reproaches nor taunting.

Crowley whispered one simple thing, something that those ears had never really heard before, ‘cause when it wasn’t a forbidden word those shells that were their bodies were still in God’s mind.

Even though Aziraphale had never heard the name pronounced by the demon, he recognized it.

It was like a switch for his mind.

He remembered everything: the stars, the time spent together, the warmness of being somehow a unique thing, the love that they had felt for each other well before the beginning of time.

And he remembered when they were separated.

The first, real pain that he had ever felt.

The burning sensation of something ripped of like flesh and then the emptiness.

And right after that, nothing.

Blank.

Crowley had to grab him by his arms to shake him out of his state of trance.

Maybe, he thought, it wasn’t the best idea. Aziraphale looked completely shocked and Crowley realized that maybe for himself that that word was just that, a name; but for his friend it changed everything.

His origin, his meaning, his duties as an angel on the Earth.

«Angel? Angel, please, look at me».

They had spent more than six thousands years pretending to be enemies and now the demon had just showed him why they could not be, but instead why they were meant to each other.

And he had always known.

Finally, Aziraphale looked at him again, his eyes glowing because of the tears.

«I am sorry», Crowley tried to apologize. «I know it’s a shock and I should have told you before but how could I, knowing that you were still so close to God? And I never suspected that you felt those _things_ when we were together. I thought that you were completely muted and--»

Aziraphale smiled.

His eyes were still full of tears and some of them had started rolling down his cheeks, but he was smiling so hard that Crowley had to stop, confused.

«You have no idea of how happy I am that you are finally here _with me_ », murmured the angel, trying not to sob, cutting away the last bit of distance that there was between them, kissing his lover so hard that it was almost painful and reliving at the same time.

Crowley’s heart dropped.

They were the same as usual: it wasn’t their first kiss, it wasn’t their first picnic, it wasn’t the first time that one was over the other, grabbing that one’s hair with such a grip that it looked like despair.

But somehow everything went back.

Not at the post Apocalypse thing, not at six thousands years ago, but well before, when they were just ideas, wandering in the nullity of Space and Time together, two angels that looked almost like one, whom needed no one but each other to be.


End file.
